Ophiuchus

Puppeteers

  What is fate?
Is everything preordained or do we have control of who or what we become?
For this I am going to source back to Greek myth again, focusing this time on the story Sigmund Freud made popular, the tragic tale of Oedipus Rex.
The story goes that Laius, king of Thebes and his wife Jocasta were trying to conceive a child and, concerned with their progress, decided to consult a Delphic oracle to try to determine the cause of their bad luck.
The oracle then to warn Laius that if he had a son, that his son would kill him.
They managed to abstain from any activity that may lead to the conception of a kid, but one night after getting drunk, Laius got Jocasta pregnant, and after giving birth to a boy, Laius handed his son over to a Shepard to die.
The Shepard, feeling sorry for the infant, handed the baby over to a Corinthian herdsman, telling him to take the baby to Polybus, the King of Corinth. Polybus and his wife decided they would raise the child together in the royal household, naming him Oedipus.
Many years later, a drunken guest at a banquet at the palace in Corinth began accusing Oedipus of not being the true son of Polybus, and despite all the false assurances in the world from his "parents", Oedipus decided to visit...
...the Delphic oracle...
...yeah.
The oracle did not answer any questions posed by Oedipus; instead, offered him a warning, similar to the one given to Lainus years before: telling Oedipus of how he would kill his father, marry his mother, and father his own siblings.
Oedipus freaked out and, forgetting all about his doubt about his genetics, heading as fast as he could out of Corinth, and straight for Thebes.
On the way, Oedipus encountered a group at a three-way crossroads heading in the opposite direction. The old man in charge of the party and Oedipus got into an argument about...
...something stupid, and Oedipus just ended up murdering all but one member of the caravan, then just went on his merry way.
Meanwhile, Laius had been missing for a while after going to visit with...
...the...Delphic oracle...
...to find out about a Sphinx that was holding his town hostage.
His brother, Creon, in the meantime, took his place, devastated by the death of his son; who was eaten by the Sphinx: who propped herself right at the main gate of Thebes and would pose a riddle to any passerbyer.__If they got the riddle wrong, she would eat them.
Oedipus; who answered the Sphinx's riddle correctly, something about a human aging: sends the Sphinx off a cliff, and Oedipus was hailed a hero, becoming king and marrying Jocasta: bearing four children.
After a short time though, a terrible plague struck Thebes. Creon and a team of Thebans was dispatched...
...to...
...the Delphic.... oracle...
To find out why...
They returned with news that Laius' killer was still living among them, and that the plague would not be lifted until the man was found and killed/banished.
They brought in a blind seer and questioned him about the matter, hoping to gain more info about Laius' killer. The seer refused, but admitted he did know who it was, but said it would be better not knowing and riding out the plague. The seer then tells Oedipus that HE is the curse on Thebes, and Oedipus doesn't believe him: instead, accusing Creon of plotting against him, since it was Creon who pointed them in the seer's direction.
After getting nowhere except in the middle of a heated argument between a blind seer and Creon, the queen herself comes in and breaks them up, telling Creon and the seer that she will handle the situation.
Jocasta manages to calm Oedipus down, telling him that the oracle only speaks nonsense, and follows this up with the prophecy of how Laius was supposed to die at the hand of his own son when what "really" happened was the son was left to die when he was born, and the king was killed by a mysterious stranger at a three-way crossroads.
The gears start turning in Oedipus' head as he starts to put the pieces together; and tells Jocasta of the prophecy he had been told and his encounter at a three-way crossroads. He sends for the sole survivor of the crossroads fight, hoping to clear his name.
At the same time the survivor arrives in Thebes, a messenger comes from Corinth, bearing the news that Polybus has died and that they would like Oedipus to come back and rule their city.
As fate would have it, these two men know each other because they were the two men in the beginning forced to deal with the newborn Oedipus: the survivor being the Shepard given the task of getting rid of the baby, and the messenger from Corinth being the herdsman responsible for giving Oedipus to his "parents": and you better BELIEVE they recognized each other.
Oedipus could put two and two together: and so could the queen. He and Jocasta flipped out horrified at the shocking discovery.
Jocasta ended her own life, and taking a broach pin off her corpse, Oedipus stabbed his own eyes out, walked outside, gave Creon the crown, and banished himself from the city.
Now, why, you may ask, would I tell a story you may or may not have known and why did it go on forever?
And why won't I stop now?
Well, this is where I tie this story into what I plan to talk about tonight. It could be the force that's associated with the butterfly effect and string theory, it could be the force that brought your mom and dad together,and it could be the force that has made this post pop up on your news feed, leading to you reading it now.
Fate.
Destiny.
Or maybe...
...chance?
That little rush of excitement that pushes you to do something you have never done before; an itchy trigger finger.
Out of those three words, one doesn't belong, but they seem to hold a relativity to one another that sometimes, you just can't shake: the puppeteer's trinity.
"But chance, isn't that mathematical?
You never use math in your everyday life."
You would be would be wrong in that assumption. Everyday you use math: for example, driving out of an empty parking lot on a snowy day.
Notice how if you're an anxious driver, having no one behind you increases your focus on the situation in front if you: thus you will see every opportunity, being able to react quicker, and may be more willing to take a risk: a slight increase in chance that you will leave the parking sooner.
But it's snowing; you have your windshield wipers on and your attention is slightly less on par than it usually is, canceling out the effect of an empty parking lot.
The landscape is a lot more contrasted with white than usual: you will have to be on the look out for white cars: subconsciously thinking back on all the times you've been in that same situation under different circumstances, how familiar you are with the area, gathering information about whether or not there is a good CHANCE a white vehicle is likely to appear out of nowhere...how high the snow banks are...how good is your eyesight?...
You see, your brain is doing math all the time: so much, in fact, that if you didn't have that little push, that little impulse...
...time would just... stop...
Caught on a never ending loop of questions, anxiety that would stop everything right in it's tracks.
Look up.
Who's holding your strings?
The archer? The bull? The scorpion?
Does Venus retrograde in your sign this year?
Once you figure that out, where is your puppeteer relative to where you are now?
Next, how about a little closer to home; a celestial body known for tides and having people howl like a lunatic.
Is it a full moon tonight?
There's a similarity between the concept of tides and the human body, especially the brain.
They're made up of mostly water.
Yes, I feel that life is mostly chance, and that we as a human race have the ability to choose who we are going to be in this life. But, I also cannot deny that "force". Whether fate is just the slight little tugging forward of time on a timeline already set out for you, or the anxiety keeping you in your house from all your friends is your free will holding you suspended in time while life rushes on...
Well....
That depends on how big of a chance you are willing to take today.